Saturday, April 30, 2011

Alcaiceria





Upon arrival to Granada, while wandering through the streets surrounding Granada's cathedral, my friends and I came upon a little market, or alcaiceria, in the the old moorish quarter known as the Albaicin. The color and variation of all of the bins and baskets of spices, herbs, dried fruits, and teas were breathtakingly beautiful and the aromas were intoxicating sweet. 

The name of this market, the alcaiceria, literally means the "house of Caesar" in recognition of the fact that Emperor Justinian granted the Moors permission to sell silk. In fact, the Alpujarra mountain range near Granada, is famous as the location where silkworms feasted on the leaves of the Mulberry trees and from where the raw material was then transported by mules, to Granada and then woven and sold at the bazaar alongside ceramics, porcelains, and a whole host of other things imported from the Middle East.  

Today, while there remain a handful of authentic spice merchants, the rest of the market is now dominated by interesting, but cliché, souvenir shops that don’t actually sell many authentic local crafts. For example, most of the products were made in India including everything from Kaftans to jeweled slippers, skin drums to silver teapots, and colored tea glasses to leather bags. Despite this minor disappoinment, it was interesting to wander around the area where the old bazaar once stood before it was destroyed by a fire in 1843.

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